Author Showcase
“… he heard a strange rumbling noise coming from the kitchen. Then a loud crash. He got there just in time to see a small glacier go right through the kitchen wall, into the living room, and out the front door.” (from “The Glacier That Almost Ate Main Street”)
A glacier that starts in a refrigerator is just one of the weird things that can happen in these twenty-one stories by Highlights for Children author Gene Twaronite. What if you showed up for school one day, but the school wasn’t there? What if words suddenly leapt off the page in the book you’re reading and floated away? What if the jet you’re on is afraid to fly? What if your parents gave you a real live rhino for your birthday? What if a little snake stretched and stretched to become the longest snake in the world? What if dragons really exist somewhere? What if …? Discover the answers to these and other questions. But be careful. Imagination can be a dangerous thing … especially if someone closes the book on you while you’re inside.
While some of these stories were first published in magazines including Highlights for Children and Read, many are brand new. Suzanne Barchers, former Managing Editor of Weekly Reader writes:
“Odd encounters, chance meetings, what ifs, what nexts…those are the words that spring to mind while reading Gene Twaronite’s Dragon Daily News. From books that leak their words to a fig tree that really pulls up roots and walks away, Twaronite’s stories are sprinkled with the wacky and the weird—while generally being totally believable. Inspired in many instances by traditional tales or fables, the stories sparkle with unexpected twists—you’ve heard about going hunting for tofu beasts, right? Then there are those idiosyncratic characters. From Stretch (a rubber boa who has grand adventures while stretched) to Snoop and Snort (dragon cub reporters in search of the truth about those creatures called people), the characters drive the stories forward, begging the reader to ponder what they might do next. If I were still a classroom teacher, this is just the sort of book I’d share with my students to trigger their own imaginations. Instead, I’ll settle for sharing it with my grandkids as we wonder if tofu beasts might still be found somewhere—besides in a grocery store….”
The author provides a special note to parents and teachers:
“I’ve included in the Introduction some background notes on the genesis of each story. You might also be interested in the fact that the readability of these stories, according to the Flesch-Kinkaid Scale (Reading Level Statistics), ranges from 2.4 to 7.3, with an average of 4.5. Most young readers, along with those adults who have not forgotten how to read or what it feels like to be a child, should be able to handle these stories. And for those adults who have forgotten what it feels like to be a child, maybe these stories will help you remember.”
The book is available in both print and e-book formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online bookstores.
About the Author
Gene Twaronite is an Arizona author whose adult and juvenile fiction has been published by numerous magazines, journals and anthologies. He is a published member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. His first commercial sale of fiction (for the story “The Glacier That Almost Ate Main Street” included in this collection) was to Highlights for Children in 1987, and he has been writing ever since. He is also the author of the middle grade novel The Family That Wasn’t and the young adult novel My Vacation in Hell. Gene writes a monthly humorous nature column as well under the name of “The Absurd Naturalist.” You can follow more of Gene’s writing at his blog The Twaronite Zone: http://www.thetwaronitezone.com
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